There is no reason to open up more space for the current number of pilots to fight in. Plus we'd be accepting that the war means nothing to the faction's space you're in... go ahead Gallente, run around and shoot some Caldari in our space, we have no Navy to oppose you with...

The only reason this would ever make any sense, both logistically and story-wise, is if war participation grew beyond the point of being geographically sustainable in low-sec, and factions could actually attack and take over high-sec systems.

The effort required to circumvent the NPCs is pretty balanced with the reward. It's not particularly easy to get everyone organized to do it, but when you do, you have more opportunity to catch people off guard.

Station guns firing on enemies could be added to low and/or high sec in my opinion. That is an idea that could be fleshed out.

The reason any militia is sad atm is because it's hard to justify fighting for something that has no consequences, not because there are NPCs in high-sec.

Having a level of protection is important because otherwise FW would turn into 100% griefing on stations where you are trying to buy ships to go out and do real PvP in the designated low-sec areas. THAT would be sad.

Having the occasional destroyer trying to gank at Jita station, or the occasional fleet rip through high-sec and catch inattentive pilots is one thing, perma-camping Jita and forcing people to rework their logistics is just a huge pain and would only hurt the fun, people would probably un-sub, and you'd have even less good fighting overall.... terrible idea in every way.

lol thanks for the unnecessary condescension. If you read MY post (jeeeez) you'd see I responded to your sentry gun reference, but I wasn't thinking in terms of combining the mechanics, mostly because CCP Soundwaves original suggestion of NPC removal was in fact only NPC removal. So, yes, combining the mechanics you cited wouldn't be quite as bad, but you are still left with the first problem, which is that you suddenly have a massive area (the entirety of empire) for the relatively small number of active pilots. There wouldn't even be a reason for Gallente to fight mainly Caldari, or Amarr/Min, because the specific low-sec bridge between their high-sec semi-havens would not be any more desirable a place to fight than any high-sec.

We'll see how much activity increases with alliances... personally I hope it doesn't turn into a cluster-eff :P

Alrighty. Now that I've taken a moment to get that off my chest, I'm happy to address the other ideas here!

As for stations shooting at enemies, this to me is a no-brainer. I have yet to hear any opposition amongst FW pilots, and its the very first "simple fix" I'd push for if I ever was in the same room as a developer.

Docking games suck. Having enemy factions loitering on your station in your system sucks. It makes no sense gameplay wise, breaks immersion, and allows the WORST kind of engagements to persist.

As for docking, people are more split. I personally am opposed because FW pilots enjoy their freedom, their mobility. Just as we don't enjoy 0.0 because of the thought of waking up in someone elses space and not being able to access your own belongings, neither do we relish the idea of working hard for ships to wake up the next day and not be able to blow them up. Locking people out of their ships to me just seems like an unnecessary shackle to frequent, quality PvP.

I AM however, in favor of restricting docking services. If you have to make an emergency landing in enemy station, or wake up to find that your faction's station is now being occupied by the enemy, you shouldn't be able to repair your ship, purchase insurance, and use medical services. (Ok, from a RP standpoint even enemy stations might still provide med services to POW's as part of mutual agreement).

This way, there is a real sense of "our space" and "their space", along with estabishing home "turfs" that gather fleets together, foster cooperation (without forcing it) and provide a safe place for newer players (of which FW will always be involved with on some level) to undock and prepare to fight with a minimum of random attacks.

The bottom line is, some of the stuff that makes 0.0 "hardcore" really would just slow down our primary goal - fast, everyday, quality, small-scale, PvP. We are more than willing to give up some of the more major consequences, and give up some of the rewards of networked resources and forces leadership decisions, all in the name of the almighty pew.

We're not very disciplined and we don't take orders well...we just like to hang out in the borderlands making sure pilots of the enemy race can't TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS!!

This is probably the best way to explain our culture:

We are not the military. We are the militia.